Uran dully looked through the digital tablet that contained the textbook her class was supposed to be reading. The stylus pen that was supposed to be used to scroll through the tablet's contents lay next to it on her desk. The girl had a weird obsession with using her finger in place of the stylus because she seemed to get a small buzz from where the holographic bit of the tablet touched her finger. On boring days like this she would scroll through whatever book they were reading on the tablets and wonder if anyone else could feel their finger buzz when they didn't use the stylus.

"Miss Uran, are you paying attention?" the teacher inquired. The teacher was a robot, and he was designed to look like a fat, unsharpened pencil with noodle legs and arms. He was amusing to watch, no doubt, but it didn't make the day any more exciting when all the other teachers looked essentially the same.

"Miss Uran!" the teacher said again, this time slamming his metallic hand onto the artificial wood desk. Of course Uran jumped out of her seat from surprise, and of course her classmates snickered at her as a result. "Are you paying attention?"

"The answer you want is yes, but the answer I'm going to give you is no." Uran told the teacher with a straight face. Several of her classmates stared at her in surprise, a few others snickered or gave an expression of shock. Talking to a human teacher like that was one thing, but talking to a robotic teacher who could show no empathy? You were better off not coming to school the next day.

"Thank you for your honesty Miss Uran." The teacher then said, much to the surprise of everyone. Even Uran raised an eyebrow. There was more to this, there had to be more- there was no way that she was going to just get away with…

"Fortunately for you Miss Uran, I have been asked to send you to the office. I'll write a note to add speaking without respect to the list of grievances they wish to see you for."

Yep, that sounded just about right.

. . .

The path to the office and to the principal's office was no stranger to her and she took her sweet time walking there, just to be smart. Most kids had fears about why they were being sent to the principal's office; Uran was actually quite amused and the thought made her more curious than it seemed to worry her. The past few weeks had been rather uneventful for her, really; she had come to class on time, she actually did pretty well on a test everyone crammed for, and she held her tongue. Well… she tried to hold her tongue, but it was still better grounded than on other days.

As she got closer to the principal's office, Uran could pick up someone talking through the door. The first voice she easily recognized as her principal's, but the other was… familiar?

"How long will she be out?" her principal asked, almost sounding rather concerned.

"Not long at all." The hauntingly familiar voice replied kindly, almost sounding as if the speaker was smiling. "Next Monday at the latest."

"And this… 'checkup', will she be… safe…?"

"Of course! All I plan on doing is investigating her cybernetic skeletal implants for a certain strand of data through a traditional X-ray scan, and move from there. If she does not show signs of what I need, then she could be back in school the next day."

"And if she does?"

Uran inched closer to the office door as the other end suddenly came quiet. They were talking about her no doubt… but why? What did anything in her body have to do with a 'certain strand of data' that the somehow familiar voice wanted?

Suddenly, the door to the principal's office started to open and Uran -who had been practically leaning on it by now to hear the conversation- fell on her face with a disgraceful thud.

"Good afternoon Sarann Uran." The principal said to her as he gave her a rather blank look as she lay on the floor. Uran turned herself around to look back at the human man.

"Hello." The girl sheepishly said before she started to get up. After she brushed herself off, Uran was finally able to see who was talking with the principal. Imagine her surprise and confusion when she saw that it was Professor O'Shay.

"I assume you overheard the general gist of why I asked your teacher to send you here?" her principal then asked as he went to sit at his desk.

"I'm a genetic freak?" Uran guessed with a blink.

"Cybernetic freak." Professor O'Shay corrected, not meaning any harm. Uran gave him a look that was anything but amused, which made the professor nervously adjust his collar and carefully choose his words for the next part of the conversation. "Miss Uran, how familiar are you about your… special condition?"

Uran gave Professor O'Shay a rather slow blink that gave him the impression that she thought he was dumber than a sack of bricks.

"I was told," Uran started, sounding a bit sarcastic and annoyed, "That when I was born, my body was unable to make calcium, like, at all, so by the time I was a month old half my body was in a cast because my bones had become so brittle. Then I had this big, experimental procedure done and somehow along the way a robotic skeleton was placed in my body and that it would grow with me and protect the still human organs I had. And some other things happened, but that's not what you're asking so I'm not getting that into it right now."

"Do you know who oversaw the procedure?" Profesor O'Shay inquired as he started to stand up. "Do you know who drew the initial plans for your unique skeletal frame?"

"No…" Uran slowly said with a shrug. "Should I care…?"

Professor O'Shay walked over to Uran and put a soft hand on her shoulder.

"Do you remember when you asked me if I thought the Kokoro Theory was nothing but a dream?" he asked her. Uran's face scrunched into a weird expression that detailed her confusion. O'Shay looked her directly in the eyes and held his hand on her tighter. "The Kokoro Theory is a puzzle that I've been trying to piece together for the past three years, and if you'll let me, I believe that your cybernetic origins to Tenma is exactly the piece I need to complete and affirm the theory. But… I need your consent first."

Uran backed away from Professor O'Shay as she continued to look at him with a look of confusion and a bit of fear.

"So… it's real. That android Tenma made of his dead son. It was a real… thing?" she asked.

"Would you like to meet him?" Professor O'Shay asked her without a second thought. "He's not activated yet, but if you hold the part of the Kokoro Theory that I believe you do, I may be able to make him fully functional. But, again, that's your choice."

Uran stared at the professor as if he had grown a second head, then she slowly started to careen backward into unconsciousness.